NFTNIF Volume 3 Episode 10 A Halloween Tale

The Men of EarthMission present- A Halloween Tale

(NOTE: Gentle readers, although this story uses the real world as it's point of departure, this is a work of fiction, devised in the depths of night, for your horripilation and shivery delight.  So sit back, turn off the lights, and enjoy.)

Scene opens on a lonely hillside.  A couple of tents and a weary truck among the looming trees.  Cut to interior, an octagonal tent, 3 occupants, lighted by a small electric lantern hung at the apex.  The interior is orderly, the occupants dressed warmly.  There are several operations underway - a cigarette is being rolled, tasty beverages tucked away safely in corners, the remains of a meal stacked and ready for disposal, a deck of cards has appeared.

The 3 are talking freely, warm and happy and at the end of the day.  Outside a dog barks suddenly, but that happens often.

Suddenly, very close together, 12 shots rip the night.  The shots are so loud they have to be close, from the cluster of dwellings, trailers, shanties, mobile homes and a few houses at the foot of their hill.  Swiftly, all lights extinguished, every extraneous item put  away and 3 men pressing to the ground, listening.

"Help me, help me oh God" closeby, but growing swiftly fainter.  Sounds of scuffling, many voices raised in alarm.

Outside the tent, something coming uphill.  No one even breathes as something moves fast, uphill and away.  Minutes pass before anyone even whispers, and noises and action continue below. Hooded or capped, a head appears at each end of the tent, sliding out through the  narrowest slit. 

Lights in the bushes, trucks, cars and walkers searching.  No one comes near their tent.  Gates open and close, the search is limited but thorough.  Fire engine, ambulance, police arrive and depart.  Sounds of conversations getting softer.

Far away the unmistakable sound of a high speed collision - Wham, clatter screech, swallowed by distance.

One awake in the tent now.  Outside, far away 8 shots popopopopopopopop.  Dogs howl and bark but the barking doesn't spread in the usual way.  Quiet again. Popopopopop.  Fewer dogs, barking more savagely.  Popopop.  Pop.  Quiet again.

A car passes along a road without lights.

Midnight.  In the small trailer park/subdivision, a man's voice rises.

"What IS that?  OH GOD, WHAT THE *&^% IS IT!?"  His voice, rising in pitch to a shriek of utter despair becomes a wordless scream, a beast howl from a human throat.  "What is that?  Oh God, someone, what is it?" now the voice weighed down with insupportable horror.  Steps, now loud in the shocked silence, then again "WHAT,  IS,   THAT?!?!?"  Screaming now, abandoned screams of the forever damned.  The screaming moves away, never answered, never stopping, just moving away until it's swallowed by the blackness.

Cars and trucks silently quarter the area, some with lights some without.

Moonrise is still hours away.  The lone watcher in the tent faces a terrible choice - keep holding it or step out into a night of monstrous pandemonium?  Eventually the decision is made, and blessed moments of peace allow the minimal decencies - scramble quietly back into the  tent and resume watching at the slit. 

Some time passes (with no one screaming how will one know how long it's been?) then in the distance, a helicopter.  Approaching slowly, inexorably.  No lights, no searchlight.  Closer, passing, moving on.  Never any lights. Gone.

A pickup starts suddenly, and accelerates away, gathering speed until it's lost to the void of night.

The last quarter moon rears sullenly over the hills, casting a sickly light and pooling even darker shadows.  In the distance, more gunfire, dogs, but closer still

Wild laughter, young voices calling to each other, ugly laughter, cruel laughter.  Never getting close, moving in an arc, and finally gone.

Dawn must be close now.  A final wound on the night, the sound of dogs, many dogs, dozens of dogs, fighting wild, gutteral, tearing something in a vast pack, something that truly slashes the night with a scream of defiance, but buried under an avalanche of berserk dogs.  The sounds of struggle become softer, wetter sounds of feeding.  Again, quiet.

The day begins like any other, as innocent of the events of the night as Ohio is innocent of Atlantis.  Nothing ever makes it into the news, but by lunch everyone knows that 9 dogs were found, horribly torn and scattered, but only the signs of a terrible struggle, no remains of anything but dogs, nothing except some prints, of monstrous paws, stabbed into the ground as something stood and fought, and died.

As soon as lunch is over, all the spotty news exchanged, heads shaken, the night is put into memory.  The harvest is on.

The End

From the Men of EarthMission - Did you vote?